Today's consumer electronics, such as personal digital assistants (PDA), smart phones, and global positioning systems (GPS) are packing more functions into an ever-shrinking physical space with expectations for decreasing cost and enhanced reliability. Every new generation of integrated circuit, with increased operating frequency, performance and the higher level of integration has increased the need for integrated circuit packaging to provide more solutions managing an increasing number of interconnects that the integrated circuit requires.
Many approaches have been developed to meet these requirements. Some of the research and development strategies focus on new package technologies while others focus on improving the existing and mature package technologies. Both approaches may include additional processing of the integrated circuits to better match the targeted package.
The continued emphasis in the integrated circuit technology is to create improved performance integrated circuit devices at competitive prices. This emphasis over the years has resulted in increasing miniaturization of integrated circuit devices, made possible by continued advances of integrated circuit processes and materials in combination with new and sophisticated package designs.
The high performance integrated circuits used in compute platforms and communication devices support a very high density of interface contact points or pads. As the size of the devices shrinks, the interconnect technology must be able to manage the shrinking space between the pads. Some technologies have been developed that allow an increased number of interconnect pads to reside in the allocated space while other technologies new direct connect techniques. The new techniques have not achieved the level of reliability and price competitiveness that is required for very high volume production.
Still thinner, smaller, and lighter package designs and integrated circuit designs and printed circuit designs have been adopted in response to continuing requirements for further miniaturization. At the same time, users are demanding the entire system, including integrated circuit, packages and printed circuit board that are more reliable under increasingly severe operating conditions.
Thus, a need still remains for an integrated circuit packaging system for fine pitch substrates that provides low cost manufacturing, improved yield, improved reliability, and greater flexibility. In view of the ever-increasing need to save costs and improve efficiencies, it is more and more critical that answers be found to these problems.
In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to save costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.